National Electrification Administration (NEA) Administrator Antonio Mariano Almeda. PHOTO FROM NEA/WEBSITE
MANILA, Philippines — There seems to be a light at the end of the power crisis plaguing Occidental Mindoro residents.
National Electrification Administration (NEA) Administrator Antonio Mariano Almeda on Wednesday said the whole province, which had been suffering daily power outages lasting up to 20 hours, is no longer experiencing brownouts.
READ: Occidental Mindoro endures power crisis
“From April 28 until today, they are a hundred percent energized,” he said during the Senate energy committee’s inquiry on the power woes across the country.
Almeda said he asked the Occidental Mindoro Power Corporation (OMPC), the lone power supplier of the Occidental Mindoro Electric Cooperative, to run its 20-megawatt Samarica power plant sans a provisional authority.
“I saw that the plant is there, but it’s not being fired up because of an absence of a provisional authority from the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC),” he noted.
While OMPC owner Luis Manuel Banzon was initially “hesitant,” Almeda said he later agreed after receiving the go-ahead from Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla.
According to the NEA official, only two power plants in the OMPC have provisional authority from the ERC, and both only supply 12 megawatts.
Senator Raffy Tulfo asked if this was a mere band-aid solution to the power crisis in Occidental Mindoro.
But Almeda said the assurance the NEA can only give the public is in assisting the OMPC in its bid to secure a provisional authority from the ERC for the Samarica power plant.
READ: Gov’t talks to power firm to end Occidental Mindoro blackouts
Senator Grace Poe then rued the power woes that had long hounded Occidental Mindoro when the only problem was the lack of permit.
“For how many months, they have been suffering in Mindoro. Only to find out that there is a way to supply power in the province. It only needed provisional authority,” she said partly in Filipino.
Almeda said he believes there is no reason for OMPC to fall short of the expected supply volume for its two power plants with permits.
“If the Samarica [power] plant is given provisional authority then, the OMPC will no longer have an excuse [to deliver less],” he added.
ERC chairperson Monalisa Dimalanta said the years-long delay in filing the provisional authority application for the Samarica power plant was because the OMPC had to seek environmental and land conversion permits.
“But I just confirmed that, last night, they completed their supporting documents, so they can only file the application for the third [power] plant now,” she said.
After the OMPC applies for provisional authority, Dimalanta said the ERC has 75 days to give them provisional authority, according to the law.
But, she said, they hope to issue the provisional authority for the Samarica power plant within a month after the OMPC applies.
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